Category Archives: Musings

Song by Song: Build

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I’ve been meaning to write about each song from A Work in Progress for a while now. To talk a bit about how they came to be and the thinking behind each one. I figure it’s about time I get around to it…

So let’s start with the very first song on the album: Build. Here it is, in case you haven’t heard it:

This is one of the first songs I wrote for this album. I had been messing around with a C minor tuning, and I came up with the pounding bass that starts the song.

It kinda just grew from there, to be quite honest. This was one of those rare songs that just write themselves. I don’t remember thinking too much about it…just playing it a lot and letting it grow.

Originally, it was meant to be entirely in 5/8, and it does start the way. But once the melody starts, the rhythms adapt around it, making for a lot of tricky time changes.

Again, I don’t remember thinking too much about it, I was focusing on the melody. I didn’t even realize how complex it was until I had to write it down for other musicians! I guess all those years of listening to prog, Stravinsky, and eastern music finally came through.

The title ‘Build’ refers to the overall structure of the song…I know, not very romantic. But it also brings images of anything that builds up…like the clouds that gather before a storm. I think the song already creates quite a lot of imagery, so I didn’t want the title to be too specific. Better leave it to the listener to give it their own meaning I say…

By the way, this is one of favorite songs to play live. The hypnotic quality seems to really get people’s attention and I always get a good reaction.

A YouTube Experiment

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I’ve been thinking about different ways to promote A Work in Progress, so I decided to give YouTube Promoted Videos a try. Nothing big, just about 1€ a day for a week.

The result?

Well, I definitely got more views. All things considered, I’d say the click-through rate was pretty good. For every Euro spent, I got around 2000 impressions and 10 clicks.

That being said, is it worth it? I got about 100 views in total, but very little interaction. Only one or two comments and new subscribers.

So I’d say it’s only worth it if you’re looking for raw views. And i guess if you got enough views, you’d start seeing more interaction as well, but that would get expensive fast.

If we assume we’ll keep getting the same results, you’d need to spend 100 bucks just to get 1000 views.

So, conclusion? Meh. I think I can find better uses for my money.

Here’s the video I was promoting, by the way:

Influences: Michael Hedges

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This is probably one of my more obvious influences…

Back in pre-internet Panama, it was pretty difficult trying out new music that wasn’t mainstream. There was a store that let you do special orders, but that could get very expensive, very fast.

Luckily, my family had access to the library in one of the U.S. Military bases, which had a relatively small but eclectic music selection. Everytime I ran into something I had read about in a guitar magazine or somewhere else, I’d check it out.

One of these was Michael Hedges’ Taproot, which I loved from the minute I pressed play and heard this gorgeous tune:

And when I heard The Rootwitch, I was sold:

A few years later, right before I was going to start my studies at Berklee, I got the very shocking news that he had died in a car accident. This only made me delve deeper into his music.

As soon as I got to Boston, the first thing I did was go to Tower Records and buy Aerial Boundaries. Pretty soon I had his entire discography along with Stropes’ book, and was learning as much of his music as I could. Needless to say, it’s a huge part of my musical DNA and the reason why I got seriously into acoustic guitar and fingerstyle playing.

To this day, Michael is unique among other acoustic guitarists. Few come close to the emotional deepness of his music (among them Stefano Barone and Jon Gomm).

It’s a shame that his musical legacy hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Thankfully there is now a ton of unreleased concert footage to be found on Youtube, and a new generation of guitarists are being influenced by him.

Influences: Joe Satriani

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I’ve been thinking a lot about my influences lately. Not only bands or artists, but also very specific moments and songs that have had a strong impact on me.

I haven’t heard many of them in a very long time, completely unaware of what a big influence on my music they’ve become. Going back and listening to those moments/songs/artists really helps put things in perspective…and makes me realize that my musical roots are always present, no matter what kind of music I’m making.

My first subject? Joe Satriani, simply because I was listening to his music yesterday.

When I was around 15, I got my first Satriani album, The Extremist. To this day I still think it’s his best work, great songs all around. Having Andy Johns produce it probably didn’t hurt either.

What sets Joe apart from his shred-peers is that apart from being a crazy-good guitarist, he also writes good melodies. He seems to be genuinely concerned with writing good songs and not showing off how good he is. Well…most of the time.

And yet, there’s a certain weirdness to his music (in a good way). He’s always sneaking some exotic scale or strange guitar technique into his music.

One technique that really caught my attention were those whammy-bar harmonic dives. The one he does on New Blues is particularly awesome. Listen between 2:10 and 2:25. (Urgh, just realized the grooveshark widget doesn’t show the time. Well, it’s about halfway through the song, right where the solo kicks in…)

It sounds eerily human, like somebody screaming. I spent a lot of time trying to recreate it…never succesful. There are other great moments in Satch’s music, but this is the one that’s forever etched in my brain.

I don’t listen to Satriani’s music much at all anymore, but when I was 15 I listened to The Extremist day and night, trying to learn all of the songs on it.

Emphasis on trying.

Knowing When To Let Go

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The last few months I’ve been working on a lot of new music, with the purpose of having enough of a repertoire so that I can start doing solo gigs…and perhaps even record a new cd. While it was a slow start at first, ideas have been coming fast. I would go as far as to say that this has become one of the most creative and productive times in my life.

But…with the unexpected slew of ideas comes the hard part: knowing when to accept that an idea just isn’t all that great. Sometimes, you know right away. Other times, and this is what’s been happening to me a lot lately, you come to realize it when you’ve already been working on a song for weeks, if not months.

I used to be quite ruthless about this, letting go of ideas no matter how hard I’d worked on them, confident that new and better ones would come along. But wanting to have a certain number of songs by a certain time made me lose focus. I kept fighting with ideas to make them work, even though I knew in my gut it was a hopeless battle…or worse, I tried to finish songs before they were ready, just so I would have “more songs.”

But enough of that. I’ve been playing and composing music long enough that I know when an idea isn’t working. When it’s good enough, I know because I have no doubt that it is. I know because I can practice and play it for hours without getting bored and still feel an emotional connection.

So from the new songs I’m working on, I have one or two that are definitely going into the trash bin, and a few others that need a closer look. And to tell you the truth, it’s actually quite a relief to let those songs go. Sure, there’s a small part of me that goes “but that chord change in that one song was soooo cool!”, but I’ve come to the conclusion that if those parts are really that cool, then they’ll surface again in the future. At least I hope so…

Changing Strings

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changestringsI love playing guitar, I really do. But there’s one aspect of it which I don’t find very exciting, and that’s the thought of changing strings. 

By itself it’s not that big a deal, really. It’s only 5 bucks and 15 minutes of your life. But having to do it regularly can get quite…annoying. Sometimes I envy our bass-playing brethren, who can go years without changing strings.

We aren’t so lucky. At most I can go a month without suffering too much. But if you’re gigging or recording on a regular basis, then changing at least every week is the norm. Otherwise the tone starts to suffer.

I don’t even want to think about how much money and time I’ve spent on strings in the 20 years I’ve been playing. But what really gets me is that every time I change them, I hurt myself in some way…a poke, a cut, a scrape. Look closely at that picture, it was taken this morning. Notice the band-aid?

But after the blood, pain and time wasted, I’m left with the guitar sounding better than ever, full of life and resonance. Is it worth all the hassle?

Totally.